The Green Party and Labour

I’ve been fascinated by the Green Party slight return. In part because what is happening to the Labour Party seems to be similar, but I’m not certain that it is. Few would disagree that the GP made egregious errors in government, and worse again, stayed in government. And they paid, and how, in 2011 for it.

Yet they didn’t do one crucial thing that the LP did, which was to promise one set of policies and then deliver their effective opposite. And I think that that is why the GP is slowly clawing back some limited space. There are other aspects to this. The GP is getting reasonably good transfers across the board but it is striking where it is doing well, mostly – though not in all cases – in constituencies where there wasn’t a strong PBP or other challenge.

And broadly speaking in constituencies which might be characterised as middle class, or where there might be a strong middle class presence. Rathgar-Rathmines, and Pembroke typify the latter, North-Inner City the former. Clontarf saw a reasonably strong challenge, but one that dissipated, but tellingly coming in ahead of PBP.

Clearly it was clever of Ryan to stand. It was in some ways a win win situation, building a credible vote, putting one of those from the last government front and centre and hoping that somehow the electorate would be more forgiving than might otherwise be expected. Oh, and pulling in candidates in his wake to council seats. In all those respects it would appear to have worked. The history of that last government is far from forgotten but it doesn’t appear to have the sting it once did. Though, before they start clapping themselves on the back a reality check.

The broader vote for Eamon Ryan suggests that a seat in the capital might be possible, but that raises the question as to what candidate – presumably Ryan, and what constituency? I’m hard pressed to think of one where he could stand with any assuredness of ultimate victory. And that’s the problem for them. As a national party they still seem a long way away from a sniff of GE victories.

But, all of that is irrelevant in the broad sweep of things – the GP remains a very very marginal force, still led by those whose finger prints were on basic elements of the crisis and after, and the interesting aspects of their progress have little to do with their ideology or political position. Interesting to see where they go next but an academic interest at this point in time and for quite some time to come – short of a wholesale reinvention which appears deeply unlikely.

And for Labour the grim thought, that yes, political parties do come back from the brink, but it can be a slow and partial process and that the GP’s situation may be so significantly different to that of the other party that comparisons are difficult to make.

No comfort there. Not even if they have tipped Gilmore over the side. Because it’s not just a problem with Gilmore. It’s a problem about abandoning the policies you had in the first place (no great shakes by the by). It’s a problem about abandoning your base. It is, in a sense, that they exemplify the manner in which social democracy, in large part, shifted rightwards, but with no thought as to how they would maintain support. I’ve found that baffling. None of this was unpredictable, nothing terribly surprising here. If you don’t maintain your base then you’ve got nothing. How could this happen?

John Downing suggested on RTЙ that a form of Stockholm syndrome, that their loyalty to being in government was too great. Perhaps, or perhaps they were a generation of politicians just too wedded to getting into government at pretty much any cost, too wedded to staying there, not wedded at all to questioning why they were, what they were seeking to achieve, what they wanted at the end of the process, and suggesting that ‘responsibility’ (very evident in a very shook Gilmore’s non-apologia) was enough was to completely misunderstand the nature of political activity.

But you know, the oddest thing is not that this has happened, but that perhaps it has taken so long to happen. After all the LP has lost a van full of TDs (and a Senator or two). It has lost councillors in droves. It has lost activists, supporters. It trashed its own policy platform of 2011 (and by the by, the idea that that year they arrived in government, saw the books and swooned at how bad things were is utter nonsense – they knew well in advance what would face them).

7% in Dublin down from 20% or so. As was also said on RTÉ, no appetite for an election any time soon.